By seizing control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and placing an ideological extremist in charge, US President Donald Trump has brought to the fore the deepest flaws in his administration’s founding myth. The gutting that now awaits the agency will visibly harm many of the ordinary people Trump promised to defend.

As Louis Celli, a top staffer for the American Legion, told the Associate Press, a merger would siphon off funds from VHA hospitals and clinics and eventually shift costs directly to veterans, through co-pay and other possible fee increases.

The money DeVos and her family would get from just one of the tax breaks in the House bill would pay more than 6,000 teachers. The tax break for President Donald Trump and his family would be enough to pay more than 20,000 teachers.